Yeah especially with birch for me I just heeded the warning but maybe some logs are too far gone or they will burn just not all the way dry.
Are you sure? Alder doesn't have horizontal marks like birch and cherry. Most opinions from an eastern perspective about what is or isn't good firewood don't apply out here. Paper birch, bigleaf maple, and Douglas fir are the best of our common species. They're low octane by eastern standards.
Im pretty sure....Ive lived in WA all my life and I haven't found black birch anywhere. At least not natually and if I walked past one I wouldn't have noticed it.These trees I took pictures of are standing dead too. Hell if we had black birch and that was it we would have that tree stacked a long time ago. Alder is alright but I can't say I stay super warm by it.
When this topic came up I looked up its btus and found it around 14.8 mbtus which isnt to far off from the 15.3 of my daytime burning wood lodgepole pine. Its known in these parts as being a great go to wood for serious cold weather heating.... there just wont be any coals the next day if youre burning in a non cat. Since I havent burned Alder I cant claim like you can how hot of a burn it gives. Lodgepole is a hot, hot wood. Probably like many pines it will melt your stove if you arent paying attention to your air. Now birch will always be there in the morning and you wont have to get up to early in order to rake the coals forward and load er up for the day!
Is there a reason it has to be alder or black birch? It's true we don't have black birch, but it doesn't look like alder. Oregon Cherry, or some other cherry variety, seems more likely.
No not necessarily but I guess I just like smells associated with trees if they are pleasant and still burn with the similar smells in the air. The open fireplace benefits if you will. I just figure it would be nice to have cut and stacked it fresh with wintergreen scent. Its not cherry. I can tell you that much. I know cherry to be smooth and glossy as an immature tree but this I see all day long as alder. Ive also pulled on alder bark, cherry pulls off much easier like a birch does. But alder actually doesnt do it that well. Its like feeling fruit leather maybe someone used to make in the dehydrator. Almost a sharkskin abrasive.
Amen! It is as heavy and dense as it gets. Youd look at the wood and its nuances with the bark and bark off, the open cut ends. Study it. Id ship a log or two. Hahaha just send me your address and wait a couple years.
Alder is ok, I can't remember it being super hot but its labeled as such. I think it goes to coals fast but if you dont have a metal pit or not burning it in high volume its kinda hard to feel the heat. With pine the heat often derives a lot from the sap so those flames are feeding off of that too. Alder doesn't have that flamboyancy. Just tends to flame a little and then go straight to coals. You could use it in grills I would just get a lot of good 1 inch thick sticks and make your fire. Im Aiming to take down some alder this summer and try to test it out again. Its been awhile since I burned it but I remember alder exchanges with relatives as its good as a fire but maybe this is what Id call my "middle of the road low gear". Its a soft hardwood. Theres a bit of a saying that some hardwoods burn worse than their softwood counterparts as an overlap exists. Alder isn't as tight grained here but since it was often used for smoking fish, it was perfect to be used for that fire. Didn't need to be hot since Haida Gwai'i wanted the smoke to preserve it. Along with many other Coastal Native groups here in the PNW.
